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EURACS technical training day
Chris Watts reports on the EURACS technical training day held at Barnett Waddingham's offices in London.
European integration
Our London office recently hosted the first EURACS technical training day. EURACS is the European network of actuarial consultancy firms and the day provided an opportunity for the delegates to discuss a range of actuarial issues and how they are dealt with across Europe.
The day consisted of a series of brief talks, focusing mainly on two particular issues, Mortality and Pension Scheme Accounting, with plenty of time for discussions thrown in. The previous evening featured a welcome dinner held at Le Café du Jardin in Covent Garden. This was attended by most of the delegates and speakers. An international menu was coupled by the usual dilemma of which country's wine to drink, and to no one's surprise the French contingent won. The conversation managed to stay off actuarial issues and ranged from first visits to London to the varied approaches to recycling and the environment across Europe. Moving on from French wine, some of the younger members of the group continued the evening by recycling some fine English beers (Fosters etc.).
The training day itself was started by Chris Watts from the London office who spoke on the UK perspective towards improvements in mortality and their consequences on pensions costs. The insurance team in the London office does much of the work for the Continuous Mortality Investigation Bureau (the UK profession's body that researches life insurance mortality and morbidity experience) and this allowed the talk to include the most recent developments and views in the UK. Chris's talk was followed by a very different French perspective (given by Maïsseutou Coulibaly and Gilles Depommier from Fixage), which focused on the construction of life tables for French insurance products. This highlighted the differences between the methods adopted across Europe, the discussion of which was the main purpose behind the day.
The mortality discussions were concluded with talks by Richard Herrman from Buro Dr Heubeck (Germany) and by Williem Jan Willemse from Practis B.V. (Holland). These again emphasised the different approaches used.
After lunch the discussions moved to Pensions Accounting issues. Louise Witts, a partner from our Leeds office, started with an explanation of the new UK standard, FRS17. Jean Richard of Fixage (France), Brigitte Hiegemann from Buro Dr Heubeck (Germany) and Rolf Schaufelberger from Prevista Vorsorge AG (Switzerland) all gave their slants on both the standards used in their countries and the consequences of the new IAS19 (International Accounting Standard) to both them and their clients.
These and other issues were first discussed in the more formal setting of the conference room and then over a few glasses of wine during an impromptu wine tasting event. The wine-tasting expertise of some of the actuaries came to the fore and congratulations go to Nico Top from Practis as the winner. Unfortunately Nico had to leave early and so his success had to be toasted (with his prize) in his absence.
Plans are being made for a similar event next year.
Chris Watts, January 2002.